If you only know Andy Griffith from his genial TV Southerners in THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW and MATLOCK, brace yourself for A FACE IN THE CROWD. Griffith’s folksy monologues had landed him a starring role in the hit Broadway comedy NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS. The vicious, wild-eyed Lonesome Rhodes was thousands of miles away from anything he had done before, and the actor, guided by the sure hand of director Elia Kazan, gives us a searing performance in this satire of the power of the media, and the menace of the demagogue.
When we first meet Larry Rhodes, he’s in the drunk tank in rural Pickett, Arkansas, a small town not unlike Mayberry. Local radio host Marcia Jeffries is doing a remote broadcast there, hoping to catch some ratings. The no-account drifter is hostile at first, but when the sheriff promises him an early release, you can practically see the wheels spinning…
Gotta admit, I was looking forward to another Hallmark movie based on rules for finding the perfect man again after Just The Way You Are about as much as having another hernia surgery that finishes with a catheter hanging out of me. However, while not that great, it’s far better than Just The Way You Are. At least after hearing this movie use REO Speedwagon’s song Keep On Loving You, I can still enjoy it. Also, it helps that it doesn’t have Candace Cameron Bure in it. I recently saw her on The View say she doesn’t want to integrate the Scouts because it will take something away from girls. This after I saw them play footage of a girl saying she liked working together in a single unified Scouts. I guess forced inequality and training men and women to treat each other as unequal is what she doesn’t want taken away from girls? I swear the young black lady on the panel and Whoopi must have been biting their tongues to keep from pointing out to her that what she was saying holds as much water as having separate schools for blacks and whites. Sorry, but it’s stuff like this that you start to notice more when you are transgender even if you only catch a segment on The View in passing.
Onto the film!
The movie opens up with shots of what are probably mountains in Canada behind her and her dog, but are perfect stand-ins for the mountains of Colorado for someone like myself who lives in the Bay Area. Hmmm…I already did it and this movie does use a great REO Speedwagon song, so I might as well use some music throughout this review. Let’s try this opening again.
The movie opens up with our leading lady named Cass played by Meghan Markle against Rocky Mountain High!
Then we go home and on the news is Teryl Rothery who apparently didn’t die on Stargate SG-1, but survived and has now written a book called The Dater’s Handbook under the name of Dr. Susie.
She says, “The problem is not the men in your life,” but that it’s your relationship with Jesus. Oh, wait. That’s the Hallmark movie Your Love Never Fails/A Valentine’s Date. She says it’s that you’re choosing the wrong man. You can’t be picking “the rebel guy” or “the fun guy”. You need to pick someone that is “responsible” and “dependable”. Of course she immediately tells her dog Duke that describes him.
Then we cut to the workplace to find out that Cass is in advertising. The songs will probably just keep coming to me, and I know she was not in advertising, but here’s Carly Simon anyways (Let The River Run by Carly Simon).
However, while I will have a problem with our lead always feeling a little standoffish, she is no evil boss like Sigourney Weaver’s masterful performance in Working Girl (1988). We now cut to a bar where we meet Cass’ sister who is complaining about the wedding of Cass’ secretary/assistant/right hand lady type person. She’s going to be Mrs. Dana Schmointz. Cass’ sister is complaining that she isn’t going to hyphenate her last name. I’m of the opinion that you either take one name or keep your own. I grew up with someone that had their name hyphenated and they hated it. Dropped it as soon as they could. Maybe I’m just biased because of personal experience and…
That could have been Jack Gillis instead of Jack White if he hadn’t taken Meg’s last name. I don’t even want to think of about that.
And I don’t want to think about this guy either. He is Cass’ current boyfriend because the script says so. I know I say that a lot sarcastically, but I really mean it this time. It makes no sense that she’s with this guy. Yet, she will refer back to him on several occasions in a manner that is just ridiculous. Pretend he doesn’t exist.
At the wedding she meets Mr. Right named Robert (Kristoffer Polaha). Not much to this scene except to hit the audience with a brick to the head to tell us he’s the guy.
Now we have a sit down with Mom and Sis. Sis loves this dating handbook thing. The Mom absolutely hates it. I am not even exaggerating when I say she always seemed to be on the brink of wiping her butt with it. She hates it that much. It’s pretty funny. Luckily, while the Sis acts all gung ho about the book and the Mom just shakes her head, Cass pretty much keeps a cool head through it all.
Next we meet George played by Jonathan Scarfe who I guess went into the insurance business after Love On The Air. A nice thing about this movie is that neither one is a bad guy. They are both good guys. One just makes her happy while the other doesn’t. It’s that simple. She just goes through the Spin Doctors song Two Princes for awhile.
Now we just kick the current boyfriend aside. Do you care? The movie sure didn’t. Then nutty Sis takes Cass to see Rothery set herself up to look like a hypocrite at the end of the movie when she has a new book for people getting a divorce. No matter. Cass now runs into Mr. Right in a park.
Yep, still the right guy, but why does it look like he has washers on his gloves? Not sure what that’s about. Her perky blonde friend who got married tries to tell her that Mr. Right and her looked good together as well. Cass now goes on a date with Mr. Right and…
a T-Rex at a miniature golf course. They also play pool before going back to her place. The T-Rex should have told them what to do, but…
it’s a Hallmark movie so we have to string this out longer (Get It On (Bang A Gong)).
What follows really is Cass going out with Mr. Wrong and finding it unsatisfying while also seeing Mr. Right and finding him to be pretty cool. All the while her sister and mother have stupid conversations that cause Cass to go through stupid motions instead of just following her heart.
Oh, and this happens to this guy. No, they’re not referring to him as a walking advertisement. They are talking as if he is not there.
I could go with Incense and Peppermint, but let’s do The Kinks here instead cause why not (Dedicated Follower Of Fashion by The Kinks).
Now Cass and Mr. Right meet at the gym and share headphones to listen to music while they run on a treadmill, but he falls and destroys the iPod. It only happens so that we can see him give her a new one which is supposed to show that he was paying attention and knew the right thing to give her.
And he does this too.
Mom’s a big REO Speedwagon fan.
Okay, I’ve reached that point in the review. You have gotten the gist of how the rest of this plays out. Cass had the best time at the golf course so to decide between the two guys, she takes George there. George doesn’t pass the test. After seeing that Dr. Susie is getting divorced and throwing that awful book in the trash, she goes to a Chinese New Year party Mr. Right is helping out at and they kiss.
Great song, but I’m sure how well it really fits this film anymore than me using The Kinks’ Dedicated Follower Of Fashion. As much as I hated Just The Way You Are, the song made sense there. Oh, well.
I really am sick of romance movies that base their plot on supposed rules for dating or finding the perfect mate. Especially when many of the scenes in this, which include explicitly rating the guys, would probably have women crying bloody murder if the genders were reversed. Let’s agree it’s just tired and stupid at this point.
They do a decent job here. My only real problem with the movie is the main character. Even at her most tender moments, it still never felt like she was letting her defense down. That bothered me and made it difficult for me to warm up to her. A perfectly average one that’s fine to watch once, but not worth a repeat.
I learned many years back when to know to stop something you are working on and just put it out. I was up really late debugging an assembly language program and found myself singing Wooly Bully by Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs. That just started playing so it’s time to proofread and let this review out. Many more movies to go.
I was going to start off this review one way, but I have to mention this instead. I literally just reviewed a Late Night Cable movie called Erotic Vampires of Beverly Hills where, while the film wasn’t very good, I spent most of the time pointing out that actress Jacqui Holland is too good for those movies. So of course the next movie I go to review, which couldn’t be on the further end of the TV movie spectrum, has a main character with the same last name: Holland. Oh, and on top of that, I also find out a guy I’ve been talking to online since last Fall is Dutch today. Cause of course this kind of thing happens to me.
Now for the way I intended to start this review. I didn’t see any of the advertising for this so I don’t know whether this is a film where I should be calling Operation Crossbow (1965). That’s a movie that was billed as a Sophia Loren film to draw in audiences even though she was in one scene and it was really an action movie starring Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) George Peppard. Regardless, you should know that while Joe Theismann is in the movie, it’s for just a very small handful of minutes. It’s a cameo appearance at best. Just know that going into the film.
The movie opens up at a sports bar where we meet our leading lady named Laurel Welk played by Emily Kinney of The Walking Dead fame.
This thing about how she feels about weddings is that she believes they are sacred. This comes up in a conversation with a friend of hers about how she is going to make some money seeing as her design career isn’t going anywhere. I believe this is supposed to hint at a possible plan about doing the My Fake Fiancee (2009) thing. However, I remember her mentioning it a couple of more times during the movie. It’s kind of weird. I’m not sure who it’s there for. I’m not a religious person, but even if I were I think I would still find this weird.
Anyways, we also meet a guy who I’m pretty sure is her boyfriend and is a big fan of football while she isn’t. I say I’m pretty sure because he is in so little of this movie and has absolutely no importance to the film. Might as well not be here. At the bar they see football player Danny Holland (John Reardon) get injured. If you haven’t seen it already, don’t go and look at the footage of when Joe Theismann got seriously injured for real. I’ll sum it up for you: Legs aren’t supposed to bend that way.
It will turn out that his condition isn’t career ending at all. It just means he’s out 6-8 weeks. I know in sports terms that can feel like a lifetime though. During this scene we see his agent with his face buried in a cellphone tweeting about his condition. The movie will sorta play this as a negative in that he is out of touch with his client, but actually I would think getting an official word out there as fast as possible would be something you would want. Better than giving the rumor mill even one more second to just wildly speculate, which they will.
Doesn’t matter, because this stock footage shot of San Francisco they show us next tells us where the movie is supposed to take place and we move on with the story.
That shot is used to indicate San Francisco so much in movies, TV, and other places that I’m positive I even came across that exact neighborhood replicated in the game GTA: San Andreas. However, while the film is listed on IMDb as being of Canadian origin, and I have no doubt of that, they did insert this shot from Santa Montica, California too.
There’s also this shot from Los Angeles.
Now we learn that in order to find out about becoming a personal assistant…I mean in order to make ends meet, Laurel takes on a roommate who does introduce her to the personal assistant business. After a successful interview, and we find out that Danny has a book coming out along with a Wheaties box, she is hired. Hired not because she’s right for the job though. Turns out Danny always likes male assistants. Obviously the man didn’t know he was in a Hallmark movie which is why he was injured in the game in the first place. The same thing happened to Jeff Sinclair who probably just thought he was injured on the job without knowing he was in the Hallmark movie Second Chances.
Anyways, she shows up and they clash a bit. One of his complaints is just BS. No one in the locker room is going to care that his assistant is a woman any more than if the genders were reversed. He also says something about what if he wants to walk around in his underwear. Having said equipment myself, and knowing that he does like her, this actual could present a problem, but it’s solved the same way the previously mentioned one is: keep that area reigned in. Then he actually does raise a completely 100% valid point that I didn’t see coming. He likes to have male assistants for things like spotting him “150 pounds” while he works out. You can argue about that one, but I really can give him that considering the woman we are talking about here. None of this really matters though. I just thought it was kind of interesting that an actual valid point was brought up in his argument. It just comes down to whether she cries easily. She assures him that it’s only when she watches The Notebook (2004). She’s hired!
We then cut to a scene where he is signing a book he wrote about football for kids. In that one cut from introduction scene to that scene we can already see he’s smitten with her.
Then we apparently need to introduce a pre-existing girlfriend for him about as much as we needed to have one for her. Now that I have written that sentence, I do mean that both ways you can read it. Both of them of having any partners is needless in this film.
Probably wondering where Joe Theismann is and how he fits into this about now, aren’t yeah?
There he is! This, and a couple more short scenes are all you get. He plays Danny’s father. I know why he couldn’t take care of his son while he is recovering. They chose to make this a romance Hallmark movie as opposed to a movie like Chasing A Dream. Still, you got Joe Theismann. Peter Bogdanovich ended up creating one of his best films by finding a creative way to use the few days left on Boris Karloff’s contract. They could have just had him be the wiseman stereotype who shows up here and there to nudge the two main characters in the right directions. Maybe there were restrictions behind the scenes that made that impossible. I don’t know. It was just disappointing.
Now we meet Danny’s really beautiful Great Dane named Knute. As all big dogs are, he is a handful to walk. That is one serious benefit to having a small dog like I do now. Of course Mandy does have a habit of just standing and staring into nothingness until you feel like bashing your head in with a brick so…it doesn’t matter cause the dog loves her. Dogs are like that. People sometimes have a little friction to get past. He has some of that. However, let me make it clear that he really is a good customer to her throughout this. I bring that up because of a little ridiculous scene later.
To be able to do her job better, she reads up on football. That includes his book. Also, so we don’t think she is just going to disappear into his shadow, she puts her design background to use in order to feminize a football jersey. That will come around in the film…sort of.
Then we meet one of Danny’s teammates. He’s a red herring. I know, it’s not a mystery movie, but he’s a red herring for the Danny character. This introduction, and another scene, make Danny think he has a thing for Laurel, but in actuality he is falling for Danny’s sister during the rest of the film. It’s not a spoiler. The only thing that could be considered a spoiler, I will mention because it is something I give the film credit for doing and it wouldn’t be right of me to leave it out.
After Laurel has some girl talk with Danny’s mother and sister, she goes to pick up Danny at the stadium. That’s when he discovers she has a classic car, which he’s always had a thing for.
Then we get a scene that really is just there for anyone who has owned a big dog in their life. It really doesn’t serve much of a purpose.
She carries one of those big dog food bags into the house since Danny could barely stand when his girlfriend leaned against him earlier for a photo shoot. Everyone who has owned a big dog knows the pain of lifting one of those. Not only are they heavy to begin with, but they always manage to be as awkward to hold as possible. Luckily, she does it just in time for it to cut to stock footage of San Francisco at night.
A stupid scene now ensues. Laurel was working around the house when Danny and who cares shows up. Laurel hides in a room. She also listens at the door. Is this supposed to show she has interest in their relationship? Is she looking for an opportunity to sneak out like she says later? The dog of course knows she’s there and keeps going to the door Laurel is behind. Brainless takes this as a reason to leave.
That’s the room she is in. It sure looks like a bathroom to me. Was it too hard to just flush the toilet, leave the room, notice them, say I’m on my way out, and then leave? It would have solved that whole problem. However, the film needed an excuse to have both of them with their defenses down so they can have some dialog to draw them closer to each other.
Now he discovers her passion for design because of a book she has. Then she finds a copy of a book written by Kafka under the couch. Blah, blah, blah.
This is when I stop giving you the blow by blow. The next important thing is when Laurel gets called away from a wedding she was at for a supposed emergency Danny is having. Maybe this is why they had her say she thinks weddings are scared, but it still doesn’t work quite right. She just blows up at him in a ridiculous fashion. It’s not I’m going to embed the trailer for My Baby Is Black! again over the top, but it doesn’t quite jive with everything we’ve seen. He really has been good to her. He volunteers to help kids. He writes books for children. He takes playing football serious enough that he insists on showing up for the games even though he can’t play because he needs to support the team. He just doesn’t deserve the lines they have her launch at him. It doesn’t matter though, because it leads to them kissing.
Now the film quickly winds down. He kicks the useless girlfriend aside, I don’t even recall what happened to the guy she was with, he toasts his parents at a party, then tracks her down, and they kiss.
What’s nice about this ending is that he doesn’t give up playing football. It had me thinking it was going to go that route, and I would have been upset if it had. She finds a bit of an inroad into design with her jerseys and he continues to do what he loves. They just decide to continue to do this together. I liked that.
What did I think of the film as a whole? It’s one of those that is perfectly fine, but dull. No, not as dull as The 12 Gifts Of Christmas dull. I just kept feeling throughout the movie like there should be more. Even just expanding Theismann’s role in the movie might have done it for me. If it’s on, sure, sit down and watch. But this isn’t one I would return to for any reason. It’s difficult to really give closing thoughts on a movie like this because it’s like in a film where someone hands in a story and is told it’s just fine, but that fine isn’t going to cut it. This is right on the border between it’s just fine and it’ll cut it.
I’ve said it several times about him, but now I have found the female equivalent of Frankie Cullen. I watched and reviewed Bikini Model Mayhem, and while this isn’t as good a movie, Jacqui Holland still shows that she is too good for these movies. I’ve seen her in a few other things, but it’s these two films that show her acting ability. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that she has numerous B-Movie horror films lined up. I’m obviously not the only one that has taken notice.
Anyways, let’s talk about Erotic Vampires of Beverly Hills.
The movie opens up on what I would swear was stock footage from Roger Corman’s The Raven (1963). Inside the castle we meet Vlad (Daniel Hunter) and he’s brought a woman back to the castle so the movie can open up with a sex scene, but oh no!
Guess that’s a vampire cum shot. Oh, and he bites her, thus turning her into a vampire. Stupid Vlad, he wasn’t supposed to be feeding on people anymore. I mean the show True Blood exists so that means they have synthetic blood in the kitchen. Morticia (Adriana Chechik) isn’t happy with him.
Just as they are talking, Sarah Hunter playing Alexa bursts into the castle and kills the new vampire with holy water.
Yes, yes, yes, I’m aware, so here it is.
Since Alexa is on their trail it means it’s off to their summer home in Beverly Hills.
You know you have been watching some interesting movies when you look at that shot and remember the last time you saw it in a movie there was a pterodactyl flying nearby.
Now we meet Bob (Brandon Ruckdashel) and Jane (Jacqui Holland). Bob is a lawyer cause I guess those sets are cheaper than if he was a surgeon. Jane is a philanthropist of sorts. She’s upset that Bob has forgotten about her fundraising group for the next day. Her charity is The Society to Help the Itinerant Transients. Go ahead and say it, Bob.
Cue Holland and one of her comical facial expressions.
After Bob gets hit on by his secretary, we see Jane notice that some people are moving in nearby during the middle of the night. Of course it’s Vlad and Tish. Vlad puts his face in her crotch and is thankful this isn’t the 1970s. Tish jumps up and down on Vlad’s lap. Then they do what the movie Black Love (1971) taught me is called “dog fashion.” It’s important to get the technical terms correct here.
Bob comes home to find Jane is a little shaken up. I would find it a little odd too, but Bob raises some good points such as that burglars don’t normally turn on lights so everyone knows they are there. Then he tries to make up for missing their romantic dinner. And by that I mean he makes a face that looks really painful out of context.
Not sure what Jane is doing down there, but I’m sure Bob is now free of all the lint in his belly button.
The next morning Bob’s secretary (Jazy Berlin) pays Jane a visit and it turns out the fundraiser was going to do well. I mean she got a band to play called The Winking Vaginas and everything. However, as soon as she sent out an email blast about it, people kind of bailed on her. Bob’s secretary sees the obvious problem.
The girls go and snoop on the house a bit but find nothing of interest. Back at Bob’s office he and the secretary pretend they actually have anything to do with the plot before they do something…make faces…and who really cares. Back to Jane. After reminding Bob that there is nothing wrong with the actor down the street who jogs in the nude, Jane says that she is going to go over and introduce herself to the new neighbors.
Jane quickly discovers something isn’t right when they don’t reflect in her compact, and makes a quick exit. She immediately goes to a bar. That way Alexa can show up to remind us she was once in this movie.
She’s also there so she can stumble into Jane. The two of them talk and now Alexa knows where the vampires are and Jane knows she’s not crazy. Of course she goes home drunk.
Hey Bob! You’re married to a human being, not Winnie the Pooh having a nightmare. The next day Jane and Alexa go an snoop around the vampire’s home. They even find empty coffins. Empty coffins can mean only one thing. It means the two of them go back to Jane’s place and have sex. I love how much trouble it appears that Holland has getting her awfully tight green dress off here.
After the scene that’s there to remind us that most female porn stars have a no bare feet clause in their contract, we get Vlad and Tish discovering someone has been in their home. Then Vlad leaves to have a snack. Who really cares. It’s time for Jane to go and face down these vampires.
One minute you are trying to stop a vampire with a cross, a vampire killer comes in equipped with weapons, but with a little magic you are suddenly in the middle of a threesome. Happens to the best of us. I like the part of this scene where it appears Holland is really trying to stay near the bottom of the frame as she moves into a different position so that she doesn’t completely obscure the camera.
The film now comes to an end by making sure we know that Jane and Bob are still together and that the seductive secretary is out of the picture. That’s because she’s a vampire now.
Overall, this isn’t that good. McKendrick and Holland have done better. If you are looking for a better showcase of Jacqui Holland’s talents, then watch Bikini Model Mayhem. It’s a better film all the way around.
Since including the music I was listening too while writing the review went over swimmingly last time *cough*, here’s a song that was a hit during the mini-Swing revival of the mid-to-late 1990s (Go Daddy-O by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy).
I think this is also a particularly perfect choice for this film as well because while there are three other characters in the film, this is really the father’s film. The father being Tanner Gray played by John Schneider.
The film begins with some dancing in kind of a dance floor nowhere. It just exists. By that I mean something like the eternal dance floor where there is always a couple dancing. Every time the film would come back from a commercial break there would a couple dancing in the dark for a few seconds before returning to the characters.
Now we are introduced to our leading lady named Cyd Merriman (Brooke Nevin). Named after Cyd Charisse of course, but the film will have the father be ignorant of that just in case the audience didn’t know even though his character would absolutely know that fact.
She runs a dance studio in a small town. We also meet her fiancee in these opening scenes named Zach Callahan (Christopher Jacot).
Notice the lighting in these shots. They will keep that style of lighting throughout the film whenever they are in the studio. However, those scenes will stand in rather strong contrast to the rest of the way the movie is shot. It’s a neat way of visually making the place special to us in order to fit with the way the characters think of it.
In short order, we are also introduced to Laura Williams (Roma Downey).
She’s here to plead with us to not let her next movie be Keeping Up with the Randalls. Actually she’s here because she’s a friend of the family who is also their lawyer. Cyd’s mother recently passed away and there is a stipulation in the will that the father she didn’t know she really had–he didn’t know he had a daughter either–now are co-owners of the dance studio. It also works out for him, unfortunately, because he is let go from his job at the same time he finds out.
In reality it’s plot convenience, but nevertheless. Meanwhile, we spend some more time at the studio, with Downey, and with the fiancee. Spoiler alert! The fiancee is not played like a bad guy as you might expect from a Hallmark movie. He’s a really good guy in this. Now the father shows up in town with the legal papers he received to talk with the daughter he didn’t know he had.
I mentioned it at the start, but I really want to drive home that while Cyd, Zach, and Laura have roles in the movie that are important, this really is the story of Tanner Grey. He sits down with his daughter to talk about who he is and what happened in the past. It basically comes down to that he wanted to see the world and he eventually did just that. He never really says he regrets going out and seeing the world or anything. It was a good thing for him and he appreciated what he was able to see as a young man, but you can tell that the loss of his wife over it is something that has always dragged on him.
Cyd wants to sell the dance studio to some developers who want to revamp the town so she can take that money to work towards becoming a child psychologist. This film does have some of the standard big business evil/we need to defend our small towns nonsense that you see in other Hallmark movies, but here it’s really out of place. Especially when that isn’t the reason Tanner isn’t ready to just sign over his half of the studio. We find out two things as the film progresses. One, now that Cyd’s mother is gone and seeing as she appears to be on a similar trajectory to leaving town the way he did, he wants to take it slow to make sure they all have a real grasp on the situation. In particular, why the mother essentially grabbed him out of her past and forced him into the current situation via the will. He doesn’t take that lightly. We also find out that Tanner likes to dance.
And honestly, that really sums up the movie. There isn’t a whole lot to talk about with this film. Hallmark movies don’t really have the time and money to spend on having a plot driven story, but that doesn’t seem to stop them by trying to maximize plot and minimize the amount of character development needed to crank out a movie. This time they really did try to go the character driven route with this studio that almost exists outside time as a centerpiece of the film in a similar way that the film Love, Again did with the bridge.
Throughout the film we get closer to Tanner as we see him teach more of the dance classes and in conversations with Downey. All the while, Cyd tries to come to grips with this turning point in her life while her fiancee is always on her side. He always stays on her side. I remember him having a scene at the end of the film that was similar to a scene the father had in the recent South Korean film Marriage Blue. In that film, an older man’s daughter is going to get married but she hides a much more wild side of herself from a lot of people, including her father. She shows up to tell him the truth. At first we think we’re going to get the response you often see in movies where someone comes out as being gay to their parents and in turns out they already knew, but not quite. He’s just happy for her, is a little surprised she bothered keeping it a secret, and is a little ticked off that his future son-in-law has known more about his daughter than him this whole time. Zach has a similar moment where he isn’t happier or sad for her when she decides to keep the studio. As long as she was being true to herself, then he’s happy to be right there with her.
One other thing I want to mention is a scene actor John Schneider has near the end. It’s a sweet and understated conversation he has with Downey.
He basically pours his heart out here about everything he has been thinking about concerning the whole situation and why he is ready to walk away now if it is necessary. It’s a nice and well done piece of acting that you usually don’t see in these Hallmark movies.
My final verdict on this one is that I do recommend it. There are little things I would have tweaked like the big business threat thing which was just out of place, but it’s still one of the good ones as far as Hallmark goes.
Clearly though, the only thing missing from this movie was Billy Idol singing at their wedding.
And okay, I know you saw the title and I mentioned music so you all probably expected it. Here’s Ballroom Blitz by Sweet.
I was very disappointed in Unleashing Mr. Darcy. It was nothing like Hercules Unchained (1959) and it’s not based on the recently restored version of Jane Austen’s classic about prejudice against the undead. Instead the movie has a Hallmark Christian Grey, a woman who doesn’t seem to know how schools or dogs work, and overall is a film that could have been condensed into something shorter.
The movie begins in a classroom and we meet a teacher named Elizabeth Scott (Cindy Busby). After assigning the students their homework and dismissing class, she is approached by a parent who doesn’t like that she isn’t letting his son pass so he can play sports. You know, the standard stuff. However, I believe this is the first time I have seen the parent actually whip out cash and try to pay off the teacher on the spot.
Of course she turns down the money and he throws a hissy fit before storming off.
We go home with Elizabeth and find that she owns a cocker spaniel. I don’t recall if it’s now or later, but she will actually say that one of the things she likes about dogs is that they don’t manipulate you. I get the feeling screenwriter Teena Booth has never owned a dog in her life. I have owned dogs all my life and if there is one thing they are masters of, it’s manipulating you. If they want something from you then they will make sure you are going to give it to them. I mean where do you think the phrase “puppy dog eyes” comes from. Minor thing, but being a lifelong dog owner, I found it very funny.
Now Elizabeth goes to pay a visit to her sister Jenna played by Tammy Gillis who is looking good after being rescued by The Postables in Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Impossible Dream. She takes her cocker along with her. Little personal side note. My first dog was a Cocker Spaniel named Jenny. That was 6 dogs ago so it’s been awhile. Despite having their fair share of flaws, dogs really are wonderful.
When I review Hallmark movies I often point out goofs or the interesting ways they fake computers and cellphones. I could mention that the shot on the iPad she now uses is very likely just a screenshot they took on a computer and imported onto the iPad, but that’s not what is notable here to me.
I wanna know what happened to this poor iPad. Look at that home button all turned at a weird angle. This thing looks like it took a brutal beating before being used in the movie. I would love to know the story behind this.
Anyways, the process to let her go from the school begins. She seems genuinely surprised that the school would automatically side with the father and the mother who is on the school board. This is what I meant when I said she doesn’t seem to know how schools work. I remember when a friend of mine’s son got in trouble because apparently his school project looked too phallic to them. She shouldn’t have been shocked at all that she was going to be let go. Of course it works out for the best because she now gets to take her dog to a dog show.
This is as good a time as any to point out that actress Cindy Busby might just be able to give Rachel Boston a run for her money in the funny facial expressions department on Hallmark.
Can we see Mr. Darcy (Ryan Paevey) now?
Actor Ryan Paevey really is a high point of this film. Seriously, the best comparison, in recent memory, I can make is to the character of Christian Grey from Fifty Shades Of Grey (2015). Just without the dark past and he doesn’t attach women to leashes and then judge them or anything. He’s rich and judges dogs. He is slightly aloof, but never really off putting. Confident, but not full of himself. He’s also quite attractive. He still feels like a real person though. Long story shot, I think Ryan Paevey did a really good job with the character.
She now is officially let go by the school and accusations that she tried to bribe the guy have even been raised. Now she decides to move to New York City to take up a job offer to be a handler in dog shows. Of course not to be outdone by Busby, Paevey shows that he too can make interesting faces.
She runs into him almost instantly when she steps out of the cab and we meet his dog.
In short order she is swept up into this upper crust family. She actually finds allies on almost every side except from the aunt and the woman she wants her nephew to marry.
I’m just going to refer to them as Prejudice and Prejudice, Jr. We also meet his kid sister named Zara who is played by Sarah Desjardins.
She’s grown since I saw her in Kiss At Pine Lake. She is an ally too and we will find out that after he and his sister lost their parents, he took care of her.
What follows is the typical story of a normal person introduced into a rich family who has already had plans for one of the younger family members. It plays out in the papers too.
And yes, the filler text they put in is still humorous to look at.
We keep getting to know Mr. Darcy better and she moves closer and closer to him. He’s very much his own man despite what Prejudice and Prejudice, Jr. would like to believe. In the end, it comes down to a party. The evil ones make a scene so he kisses her on the spot to make sure she, and those two understand where his feelings lie. Even Elizabeth’s sister notices that the kiss wasn’t just to brush off Prejudice and Prejudice, Jr.
This is when the movie takes an odd turn. Instead of her getting that, she seems to think she was just used. Then her sister overhears Mr. Darcy talking to a male member of the family. This is what they say.
[laughter]
Henry: Donny, I gotta tell you, that kiss that you laid on Jenna’s sister, that was the highlight of the night, my friend.
Mr. Darcy: Oh, the kiss…the kiss was to…the kiss was to shut Aunt Violet up.
Henry: The kiss was because you like the girl.
Mr. Darcy: Why would I like Elizabeth
Henry: [chuckling] Oh, why?
Mr. Darcy: Why would I like Elizabeth Scott? She’s over proud.
Henry: Beautiful
Mr. Darcy: and crass
Henry: intelligent, kills it in a ball gown. Brings you trophies, all those kinds of things.
Mr. Darcy: Yeah, yeah, all those—
Henry: You are absolutely fascinated by her, that’s a fact.
Mr. Darcy: [laughs]
Henry: Admit it.
Mr. Darcy: Mmm-hmm
Henry: [sighing]
The whole conversation is said with Henry speaking in a tone that says you know you like her, just admit it already.
Now the sister runs back to Elizabeth and has just flipped out. Elizabeth immediately flips out too and storms off in a cab. She tells him to not pretend Jenna misunderstood him even though it’s clear as day to anyone who isn’t nuts that she did. He then says he said some unflattering things. When? He tells her right out his feelings for her, but since he says “I’ve decided we belong together” that some how is even more reason to act like a nut job saying “you don’t get to decide who I belong with!” She will even tell her friend he had the nerve to tell her he’s in love with her. Oh, dear God! To give you an idea how crazy this all plays out, take a look at the beginning of The Cinema Snob review of My Baby Is Black! (1961) where he shows the trailer.
I know that Hallmark loves a last minute romantic speed bump, but this is ridiculous and baseless.
She gets an offer to come back and teach because they figured out the accusations were ridiculous and disproven when Mr. Darcy put some pressure on the people driving her out of a job. She turns them down, as she should. She quickly comes around, and they kiss at a dog show while the dog stares right into the camera.
You may or may not have noticed my review was somewhat sparse. It’s not just that I don’t feel well, but that the movie feels like that. It could have been tightened up into something shorter. It always seems to be under the impression that there is a grander plot line playing out with richer characters than are actually presented onscreen. Honestly, I don’t think I can recommend this one. It’s an okay 90 minutes or so, but it really isn’t worth your time.
Been a couple of months since I did my last Navy Film Review so lets hammer out a short one before dealing with Hallmark’s unleashing of a man named Mr. Darcy.
You may recall that last time we took a look at how to unnecessarily pad out your movie so that by the time the plot you promised happens it’s way too little too late. That being the Greek film Alice In The Navy. This time around we have a short from 1949 made by the United States Navy to try and get sailors to re-enlist after WWII. It’s got everything. Talking animals, green skinned bartenders, and tits. Unfortunately, there is no perky blonde running around in pretty outfits. That is one thing Alice In The Navy did have going for it.
The movie starts off by telling me it is restricted before the fact that it’s a United States Navy Training Film. Then we meet one of the stars of the film. It’s McGinty!
No, not that McGinty. He was still tending bar in 1949. That joke is for you Gary. Our resident Hollywood Snob.
This is just plain old sailor McGinty. We start off by seeing that a sailing life looks rather fun. Although I’m pretty sure this singing sailor was on loan from the Greek navy.
But McGinty is not happy like his fellow sailors.
He wants to be a civilian and make some real dough. They only pay him “90 lousy bucks” in the navy. That’s when the talking seagull shows up of course to tell him he should put that money to good use and get drunk!
By the way, the seagull is voiced by veteran voice actor Daws Butler.
So it’s off to get drunk. That is after sneaking past some S.P. Then he orders a “double zombie and scotch chaser”, but oh no!
It’s either E~3 from E~3: The Extra Testicle (1985) or the Hare Krishna zombie from Dawn Of The Dead (1978). Take your pick.
Now McGinty shares how it really is in the navy. By that I mean that he thinks it’s like being on a slave ship from Ben-Hur (1959) while a guy who sounds like Hitler whips you. Well, one minute you’re a drinking and complaining, then one of those damn dream sequences starts on you.
Hmmm… I see his problem. He should have joined the WAVES. I mean if Cary Grant could be a war bride and Donald O’Connor could join the WACS with a talking mule, then surely this guy could have pulled it off. Of course women were integrated into the regular navy by 1949 so actually I don’t see his problem here.
This is only a dream though, but he’s still in luck because the talking seagull shows up again to magically transport him to civilian life. This is when this recruitment video starts to lose me. The first thing we learn about civilian life is that you have to wake up for work.
As we all know, the navy lets you sleep to your hearts content and simply wake up at any hour you please. He also has to shave because civilian life doesn’t approve of beards unlike the navy. The navy encourages them and later would require it’s female sailors to never shave their legs nor their armpits. All totally true bullshit. Then it’s off to work on a crowded bus.
Okay, I will give them this. Not everyone in the Navy served on a claustrophobic submarine such as in Das Boot (1981). Then he has to clock in because the navy doesn’t keep track of that sort of thing ever.
Now he has to work on an assembly line. Could be worse. Those could be chocolates like Lucy had to deal with. I like the “Positively No Smoking” sign. This part is clearly trying to evoke memories in the sailors watching it of adventures that aren’t like this while apparently also trying to remind them that the navy lets them smoke like chimneys I guess.
Then it’s off to the Cafeteria to wait in line. I’ve never served, but I seriously doubt that lines like this don’t exist on naval vessels.
Now it’s pay day! His paycheck is 300 bucks. Well that is till it’s put through the “Little Gem Deductor”.
Now he gets pulled into an insurance office to discover that it’s going to cost him to retire. Apparently, he could retire for free in the navy. How does that work? The only way that’s actually possible is if by retire they mean a bullet to the head. Regardless, now he has to go shopping.
I like that he goes into all the shops except the one with the big sign that says “Drugs” on it.
After paying rent, it’s back to his room to bitch about civilian life to the talking seagull. By that I mean he threatens to kill the seagull.
But in the dark, the seagull reminds him that he can just re-enlist within 90 days. That’s when the seagull checks off McGinty.
Now McGinty is back swabbing the deck when that damn seagull shows up again. That’s when the seagull drops the bomb on McGinty.
He works for the U.S. Navy! I always knew they were training talking seagulls in secret. Clearly, that’s why it said this video was “Restricted”.
And thus ends this short film with the message “Keep the Fleet to Keep the Peace”. I would love to know how successful this was. I know why they spend their time trying to make civilian life sound terrible because their audience was sailors who already knew how it actually was to serve in the navy at the time. However, notice that they make sure to show this guy being cast out of a family of sailors into a world where he is all alone. I would think that people who were in the navy because of the family and structure were probably already going to re-enlist. As for the one’s for whom family and structure were either not important or already in their civilian life, I can’t see this convincing any of them to stay. It just seems like a video that ultimately isn’t really for anyone. Still, it was fun to watch, and here it is if you want to see it yourself.
It’s not often that I review two movies from two relatively different sources that are both by the same director, but that’s the case this time. David Jackson is also the director who brought the Halloweentown series to an end with Return To Halloweentown. This time he took on something much easier than ripping off Harry Potter with a miscast lead. It’s about a wishing well! Sort of.
The movie begins before the title card appears, and we meet Abby Jansen played by Jadin Gould. She will be your smiling one-dimensional little girl for the movie. I mean your Hallmark Bailee Madison stand-in for the movie. Then we cut to stock footage of New York City before we meet our leading lady named Cynthia Tamerline played by Jordan Ladd.
She works for Celeb magazine where not only is Charles Shaughnessy her boss, but her secretary is Lurch with a nose ring.
Obviously this movie needs to find an excuse to get Cynthia out with the country folk now. That’s why Shaughnessy calls her in and tells her either publish, perish, or become a nanny for my kids. He suggests that she write a story for one of his other magazines called Great Housekeeping. It’s for people who think Good Housekeeping just isn’t good enough. I thought she chose to write about a woman named Angela and her charity to save the vampire flies, but somehow that will cause her to end up in Slow Creek, Illinois to find a celebrity who may have visited their wishing well. But before that, she looks up Angela’s push to save the vampire fly on CelebrityCauses.us. No affiliation with CelebrityCauses.org. This one has Darcy from A Gift Of Miracles writing for it too.
Anyways, she’s off to Slow Creek, Illinois, which is the “Home of the Wishing Well.” Not just any wishing well, but the Wishing Well. That is till the 2011 Canadian film Wishing Well came out to give them some stiff competition for that title.
She arrives at the hotel where she is going to stay and finds that Ernest Borgnine runs the place. Cynthia is in town for a story that she can take back to Celeb magazine…I thought. Regardless, this is where I am obligated to say that these townsfolk are probably hiding a terrible secret about a Muslim American solider who died overseas and whose father was murdered in the town. I mean the movie has Borgnine, it’s a small town, and Cynthia’s last name is Tamerline which is close enough to Cass Timberlane played by Spencer Tracy in the movie of the same name. That meant while watching this movie, I immediately thought of the film Bad Day At Black Rock (1955) which had Tracy and Borgnine in it. Great movie by the way that I simply updated to a modern context. Here’s the trailer.
But onward with this movie now.
Annoying little girl tells us that wishes come true if you believe and make the right wish. Then we find out that not only is the hotel run by someone Retired and Extremely Dangerous, but that the diner is run by ‘Hot Lips’ O’Houlihan (Sally Kellerman).
Now Cynthia visits the local paper and finds out that it’s run by the little girl’s dad played by Jason London.
So this is what happened to Eric Camden’s associate pastor’s twin brother.
Cynthia starts to look into this wishing well of theirs. Turns out it was once a hot attraction, but then this happened.
Don’t you just hate it when your ex shows up and your wish doesn’t come true, but your ex’s does. Now writer Enid Jones had it out for the well.
But this isn’t enough for her so she goes to dig in the archives. Long story short, Ronald Reagan once visited their well back in the 1960’s.
That and a UFO was seen on a farm in Slow Creek. Interesting! What else is interesting is that they didn’t pull this Reagan and a wishing well thing completely out of their ass. Reagan actually did visit a wishing well in Dublin, Ireland back in the 1980s. Hmmm…I guess that means I need to listen to some Irish music while I finish writing this review. Well, Dropkick Murphys (Flannigan’s Ball) is Irish enough for someone who is a quarter Irish and from the Bay Area.
Oh, and since Reagan was mentioned. I guess I need to break out Genesis’ Land Of Confusion as well.
More annoying girl, and then Cynthia wakes up the next day to find out that she is now in the Twilight Zone. She is just somebody who has been hired as a local reporter. She calls up people back in New York City, but they don’t know who she is. She doesn’t try to tell them anything personal that only she would know, but just keeps calling.
This is when you can say the film goes on autopilot. Cynthia becomes more of a fixture in the town and discovers just how important this paper is to its residents. The paper is in trouble and might be bought out soon. The little girl is still annoying. A guy dies and she writes his obituary. Another guy sets his house on fire trying to beat his record for how many of his collectible lighters he can have going at once. I’m not making that up. During the scene where he explains his little game and current record I said to my dad that he didn’t mention this is the third house he’s gone through playing this game. Then she is waking up in bed to a phone call telling her his place is burning down. Of course! She writes an article that moves people about the fire. Finally, the townsfolk watch a meteor storm.
Then this big city guy’s mustache shows up to buy the paper. It’s okay though because it turns out the guy who died left a huge amount of money to the paper in his will. I guess that’s better than the huge wad of cash in a can from Christmas Land.
Now just in case you thought you were finally getting this Twilight Zone like story, she wakes up on a plane back to New York City to receive praise for the story she wrote for the magazine. Yep, makes as much sense as you think it does. By that, I mean very little. She leaves her job at Celeb magazine and goes back to Slow Creek where smiley and her dad know who she is. Then it just ends abruptly.
That’s it! It’s quite lousy. Even my Dad said this was a stinker and he’s usually easy to please with these movies. No reason to waste your time with this. Go watch Bad Day At Black Rock instead.
Since I happened to catch her this way. I’m really sorry Jordan.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to throw a coin in a wishing well because I’m shipping up to Boston to find my wooden leg and I can use all the luck I can get.
Now that’s just Oldboy (2003) crossed with The Lawnmower Man (1992).
With those two movie reference jokes out of the way, let’s talk about these four films before I completely forget them.
Man in Love (2014, dir. Dong-wook Han) – This was a whopper to start with. Let’s look at that poster.
“SHE becomes HIS reason to live”.
At least it’s honest and puts SHE and HIS in all caps.
“HIS FIRST YET LAST ROMANCE”
Yes, because I know that my first romance which occurred in my late 20’s back in 2012 began with me acting like a complete psychopath. Actually, it essentially began when I gave into being hit on for about 8 months or so. Then I largely screwed it up because it was my first, I didn’t know I was transgender, nor that I was a lesbian. There were of course issues on her end too, but I certainly didn’t help. I really should have seen Man in Love first, then that relationship would have lasted a lifetime. Okay, let me lay this out for you.
The movie begins and we are introduced to our main character who is a collection guy for a gangster. He is rather nuts and even drinks gasoline in order to pressure one guy. He then visits a hospital room where we meet our girl. She is there because her father is in a coma. He is there to make sure that she signs a contract to take on the debt her father acquired before ending up in the hospital. He’s rather brutal and makes her sign it. He now immediately begins to stalk her. He goes to his boss and convinces him to give him the contract so that he has control over her. He draws a picture on a piece of paper with boxes on it and tells her that every hour she spends with him will make him fill in one of them. When all the boxes are filled in, then the contract will be void. Now he visits a hooker to ask her if thinking constantly about a person means you’re in love with them. Okay, but it’s not like he’s going to try and have sex with her or insinuate himself into her relationship with her dad or anything, right? During one of these hours he tries to take her to a motel. She just walks away, but the camera pans up to make sure you know it’s a motel. Then he is caught reading to her father at the hospital. After going to bother the hooker some more, he tells her he doesn’t love her. At this point, her dad dies and he either sets up the funeral or just shows up and pretends to be a son-in-law. Either way, she apparently wants him now and they kiss shortly afterwards.
So he does what we would all do in his situation of course! He takes her to a stairwell and proceeds to try and sniff her.
She obviously thinks this is weird, but that’s not your cue to stop. Amp that up!
He drops trou and proceeds to try and dry hump her. LOVE!!!
They are together now. This is only about 45 minutes into a 2 hour movie! Let me attempt to lay out how they try to explain all this.
It cuts to two years later and he is in prison where he is released early because he has a terminal illness that will kill him soon which is why they can’t legally hold him apparently.
Oh, you actually thought there would be more to it? Nope! That’s really this movie’s excuse. He has a terminal illness that he doesn’t discover till two years later. The rest plays out like some tragic epic romance with him slipping away till he dies leaving her with his father crying on a bus.
Okay, here’s what I think they were trying to go for here. We meet a man who essentially was born into this lifestyle and like myself has lived such a solitary life that he is very confused about these emotions he is feeling so he acts on them the only way he knows how. Since his life is one of threats and coercion, he uses those thing to keep her in his life. Being such a shut-in emotionally he even does something as strange as sniff her and try to dry hump her in response to something as innocent as a kiss. He entered her life at a time when the most important man in her life was leaving here for good. As strange as it was, through all his crazy attempts to be with her, she can sense genuine feelings behind his actions and acts on her feelings during a vulnerable time in her life. He never really can break from violence both in terms of his life till now, but also in that socialization that would have allowed him to be “normal” was robbed from him. Finding out that he is going to die only drives him further along the downward spiral. In the end, he essentially dies alone, but tells his father to please watch over her.
I really feel that’s what they were going for here, but it doesn’t work. The linchpins in this storyline are his character knowing he had a terminal illness, the movie being far more obvious about his awkwardness that is hiding real feelings for her, and us believing that she would actually fall for him. The character doesn’t know he has a terminal illness until well after he is gotten her. This means the film expects you to project backwards two years in a sense as a partial explanation for his actions. The movie doesn’t make his lack of ability to exist in regular society clear enough for us to see anything but a crazy man doing crazy things that should cause her to run and not result in reward for him. There’s actually a scene with the police where the cop seems to take his side because the contract says she owes him money. Also, there is never a satisfactory explanation for why she falls for all this. Nor is this man ever really admonished for his actions at the beginning of this film.
Throughout this I couldn’t help but think of another film. That film being Joan Micklin Silver’s Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979). That movie covers similar territory, but so much better. It’s a personal favorite of mine. It features actor John Heard back when he was still on track to become a star, but largely wound up as that guy everyone remembers as the father from Home Alone (1990). It’s the story of a man who spends the entire film stalking and insinuating his way into the life of his ex-girlfriend Laura. We get a flashback to when they met at the beginning of the film. He doesn’t threaten her into a relationship. It is love at first sight for him, but he does what a lot of us would do when they notice somebody that catches their eye. They find a reasonable excuse to spend some time around them. You know, like a sane person does. In his case, he moves rather quickly. I won’t get into the details.
As for the stalking, which even involves him entering her house and completely embarrassing himself and her in front of her new man, is never condoned or rewarded. The film takes us through this man’s crisis of losing somebody he deeply cared for and just can’t let go of. We get it, understand, but never are asked to find his behavior acceptable. We also understand why she loved him and why she goes out of her way to try and let him down easy throughout the film. In the end, she doesn’t come back. The ending of the film has him coming around. It finally sinks in that “it’s over”. We see him at his desk when it’s time for work to end. “It’s not that doesn’t still hurt. It’s that you get used to it.” The last scene has him in a park where we see him make a mad sprint before stopping, turning, and freeze framing.
Chilly Scenes of Winter came into my life in the aftermath of losing my first and only romantic interest. I would say I went through a similar crisis and it took several years for it to truly stop being a daily fact of my existence that I lost someone who at least was very special to me. I believe that Man in Love is well meaning, but it never really gels properly. Using Chilly Scenes of Winter again, it originally was titled and released as Head over Heels and had her come back to him. It was changed in 1982 to have the appropriate ending that matched the book it was based on and the title was changed to match that of the book. Man in Love needed that kind of work, but the changes would be more systemic than a simple change of the ending.
Now that I have poured my heart out to you in a sense, let’s move onto three comedies!
My Ordinary Love Story (2014, dir. Kwon Lee) – I actually saw (500) Days of Summer (2009) in theaters back when it came out. I can’t say I ever thought it needed to be taken and add a really dark turn by having Joseph Gordon-Levitt turn out to be a killer. Seriously, it’s like an Italian Comedy in that sense. Don’t know what an Italian Comedy is? Despite it’s name it’s not called that because it’s a comedy made in Italy. They made those before this genre appeared and they made them after it disappeared. These were comedies that would always have something dark or something you would never think to incorporate into a comedy. I love these movies. Here’s an example of what I am talking about.
Seven Beauties (1975) has our lead wind up in a concentration camp during WWII starving trying to seduce the female commandant in order to survive at the end of the movie. He is taken in front of a bunch of his fellow prisoners and handed a gun to execute someone. The man begs him to shoot him because he can’t go on living. He does shoot him. In the end he makes it home alive to his sisters in Italy. He receives a hero’s return. Our lead looks right into the eyes of his love interest he left behind. He knows and tells her that it’s okay she had to prostitute herself while he was gone to survive. He wants to be married. He tells her:
“There isn’t much time to lose. I want children. Many children. 10. 20. It’s a matter of self defense. Many, and they must be very strong. Look at the crowds out there. In a few more years they’ll be murdering each other. Families slaughtered just for an apple. So we must see to it our family is large. That’ll be our defense. Understand?”
It ends with sad piano music, a sad look on his face, and the words “Yes, I’m alive”. I assure you this is a comedy. A very funny one at that. In fact, here it is if you want to watch it. Assuming it is still available. I can’t recommend it more strongly. Warning, it is dubbed into English.
Other prominent examples include Divorce, Italian Style (1961); Seduced and Abandoned (1964); The Birds, The Bees and the Italians (1966); Il Sorpasso (1962); and many others.
With that backstory out of the way, this movie begins and we are introduced to the quirky, totally not Zooey Deschanel, girl named Park Eun-jin. We get a very modern and hipster introduction to her and her previous six relationships. It’s all presented like you are in for a fun 21st century millennial romantic comedy. She obviously feels burned by all these failed romances and she is only in her late 20s. She winds up in the back of a cab with a man. He is rather quite and reserved, but they form a bond. He does seem a little weird, but it’s nothing we take too seriously as something that should be a big red flag for her.
After entering into a relationship with him, he actually largely disappears from the film as it focuses on her becoming more and more obsessed with trying to figure out if he is cheating on her. We figure it will maybe go that he will leave her because she truly has become damaged goods, will turn out to be clean and find this aspect of her enduring, or maybe something in between where he leaves her, but she comes around and returns to him. Nope! She winds up finding a body in a case in his trunk. That’s when the film takes a sudden turn in every sense.
We are now back to the cab ride where he had an odd comment about the driver. It turns out that a cab driver was in some way responsible for the death of his father. His mother was left alone and eventually wound up dead too. I believe she committed suicide or something after being taken advantage by one man after another as she tried to help them scrape by. He grew up with a deep hatred that led him to kill the cab driver and others who had done his mother wrong. But the body was a woman in his car. Turns out that the cab driver had a wife and he only saw his mother in her which eventually led him to kill her too. I guess this is one of those movies that I won’t spoil, but this dark turn has very dark consequences that in some way are a lesson to her not to let any series of bad experiences with men consume her because hatred can fester and transform you in ways you may never be able to return from.
I recommend this as interesting look at what I see as a South Korean version of Italian Comedy. Otherwise, I wouldn’t seek this out.
Marriage Blue (2013, dir. Ji-Yeong Hong) – Phew! With those rather serious films out of the way, we can just talk briefly about a bunch of romantic comedies tossed together with a countdown that appears on screen as the wedding dates for the couples approach. Seriously, that’s it! Next movie.
Just kidding. Let’s talk a little. I am terrible about keeping track of characters and this one introduces a bunch within the first five minutes of the movie. It’s very quick. I remember the older guy who is going to get married to a younger girl from Uzbekistan and has erectial disfunction. I remember the doctor treating him who stabs a guy just off center of his penis. I remember the girl with short hair who is hiding her true identity from her parents and finds any excuse to try and put off the wedding to a really nice quirky guy who loves the hell out of her. There is a baseball player in there somewhere. Oh, and the lady who goes on the tour which causes her to run into the author of a book she’s reading.
The plots are somewhat difficult to follow. Especially for me. It really gives you no time to stop and think. A film like this sinks or floats based on whether you like the characters or not. Largely, I did. The two I remember the most are the guy with erectial disfunction and the quirky guy who has a tacky sense of fashion and loves his rocking chair. The guy with erectial disfuntion never comes across as if he is just marrying a younger woman because she’s hot or anything. We also don’t get the impression that he wants to cure his inability to get it up for him. It comes across like he feels deeply guilty that if he can’t do that, then he won’t be able to live up to his end of the bargain that she more than does for him. Just like a Howard Hawks’ film, as soon as the two of them really trust each other, the problem disappears just like the plot in a Hawks film. The tacky guy just always comes across as someone that is perfect for her and is willing to bend over backwards to try and break through her exterior. An exterior that she ultimately sheds because she isn’t happy hiding her true self. I love when she tells her father. He doesn’t appear to have known in advance like parents in movies seem to when their child tells them they are gay. He is just surprised that she hasn’t brought it up till now, and is a little pissed off that her fiancee knew his own daughter better than him.
You all know how this kind of movie comes to a resolution. If this is your kind of thing, then this really is a perfectly decent entry into the genre.
Moonshine Girls (2015, dir. Kim Ki-Young) – The plot summary on Amazon Prime told me that it was about a girl who keeps showing up drunk at school because she is trying to perfect/rediscover her dead father’s rice wine recipe in order to save her family brewery. Interesting plot, eh?
Well, it does start off with us quickly getting introduced to our leading lady and she is drunk at school alright. We also discover that roaming schoolyard bitch squads are a universal thing. We also find that teenage boys fighting on the playground for no good reason are also a universal thing. Well, that’s not completely fair. The were negotiating who held claim to all the girls in the school and those negotiations fell through. So logically they had to start fighting. This is when we are introduced to a new teacher at the school. By introduced, I mean he tries to break up the fight and gets punched in the face several times till he is on the ground. There’s your setup. Oh, and some of the kids are involved with gangsters. Believe me, that’s a footnote in this movie. The gangsters are the reason why the brewery is in trouble, but it will barely come up in the movie. But you know what does come up a lot? This guy!
No, not the guy on the left. We’ll get to him. I mean the guy on the right. He is apparently from America (a naturalized Korean) as if you can tell from the fact that he couldn’t look more British if he tried. I buy the Korean on the left as being from America more than this guy. I had a British chemistry teacher in college. He was part of a teacher exchange program. This guy could be his long lost brother. Oh, and the actor plays him like a gay stereotype too. I get no impression that he’s supposed to be gay, but that this is how Americans are meant to be portrayed in this film. As weak, meek, and generally will run from actually doing anything useful.
Now for the guy on the left. He is the new teacher at the school. I believe he used to go there when he was a kid and it apparently was a rather prestigious school test score wise at the time. This guy is basically a cross between Mr. Miyagi and the unkillable worker from Aleksandr Dovzhenko’s Arsenal (1929). Yeah, this movie definitely has a propaganda feel to it. Wouldn’t get that from the plot summary, but it’s here.
He hooks up with the girls and winds up getting everyone involved in this noble pursuit this young lady and her two friends have. The movie even reminds us that rice wine is for more than getting wasted. Also, that it’s matter of pride. He goes into Miyagi mode when he trains everyone in martial arts by having them do something that totally is not wax on wax off or jacket on jacket off. Yeah, this guy is apparently a martial artist, rice wine expert, teacher, and a Korean nationalist all rolled into one. At least he’s entertaining. Unlike the British American guy.
There is only one part of this that actually offended me, and it could be the translation along with a bit of misinterpretation. There’s a scene where the girls have an older guy taste their rice wine to test it’s quality for them. He likes it, but he can tell that their “five grains” rice wine really is only 4 grains. Why? Because he can tell that one of the ingredients is not domestic. They never use the word foreign, but it makes me wonder. Was he referring to ingredients from just their region of Korea? Did he mean South Korea as a whole? The way the rest of the film is and that the lead teacher looks like he could be in communist propaganda as a proud communal farm worker, makes me think he meant South Korea as a whole. The speech the girl gives at the end doesn’t help.
I can’t really say this is bad. It’s just a little odd. I really am not 100% positive this is or isn’t propaganda. I guess check it out and tell me what you think. If you dare! Duh, duh, duh!
Oh, and if you are a gamer, you will notice that one of the guys has a hairdo similar to the kid in the game Quest 64. Good thing I wasn’t watching this with my neighbor who I forced to play and beat that game when I was a kid. It would have given him flashbacks. I know I was already having flashbacks to In The Name Of The King 2: Two Worlds (2011) because the Korean superman teacher wears a scarf in numerous scenes. In The Name Of The King 2: Two Worlds had Dolph Lundgren wearing a scarf that he never took off. One final thing, Dolph Lundgren is going to be in a sequel to Kindergarten Cop (1990). Yeah! Let that settle in.
I remember sitting in a theater back in 1995 watching Clueless for the first time. I really enjoyed it and can still enjoy it today. Cher was certainly pampered, rich, and a bit of ditz, but she never lost her lovability. We could always tell there was a smart and wonderful person just underneath her exterior. We understood and believed her transformation from the superficial to the person we could see from the beginning waiting to spring forth from just under her persona. Even in the poor man’s Clueless that came out last fall on Hallmark called Harvest Moon they created a character that we could find endearing on some level. The Sweeter Side of Life does none of these things.
Just before showing that title card we are introduced to our main character named Desiree Harper (Kathryn Morris). We see her turn off her fancy alarm clock with a fancy watch sitting just next to it. Then we see that she not only sleeps with a sleep mask on but a pillow of sorts that wraps around her neck. Something someone uses for pain problems, but here is supposed to show just how rich she is. Then the typical walk-in closet scene happens while a maid cleans the New York City apartment where she lives. But she’s not unlikable enough yet.
That’s why we get this scene with her friends at the gym looking at an overweight woman while debating the maximum weight allowed for wearing latex. This is followed by the shopping montage before she sits down at a lunch with her friends. One of them is seeing a guy named Renaldo who they just found out has three kids and a wife back in Argentina. Another friend says, “Who cares as long as his family stays over there, right?” Our lead who is already unbearable says she’d care. That’s the one hint at this point that there might be a decent person in there. I know I can’t really get across how she manages to be so darn unpleasant already, but take a look at her.
Actress Kathryn Morris may be the nicest person in the world in real life, but her appearance combined with the way she acts in only these first few minutes makes it really hard to warm up to her. She goes home and finds her husband missed their anniversary for a last minute surgery so she gets drunk for the night. Couldn’t care less at this point.
The next morning she finds her husband at the dinner table and we see that they have a giant hand sculpture in the house. That’s interesting. Now we find out that her husband is going to leave her for his 20 year-old acupuncturist Olive. Here’s my requisite joke that he has also been sticking her with a little needle too. Couldn’t let that go. Now we get to the best character of the film.
This is her somewhat slimy, comical, and lovable lawyer. If they could make his character this way, then why couldn’t they write her the same way? He’s here to remind her she signed a prenuptial agreement. The movie will never bring up whether the agreement had anything in it about adultery which is weird. He also reminds the audience that her family bent over backwards to send her to Columbia where she obtained an MBA which she never used. She says that the interview would ask her about job experience and that all she has experience in is shopping. There are jobs where that actually is a skill, but they don’t bring that up even though I have seen a Hallmark movie with a personal shopper (12 Gifts of Christmas). He asks her where the girl he knew in elementary school went. However, he doesn’t give us any details which would have been really important so we could see beyond her nasty exterior.
Now of course her credit card is taken away from her, she gets hit by a car, and she wakes up in New Jersey with her dad. Her family hasn’t changed her room since she was little. That’s nice. Her father even has breakfast ready so what are some of those first words out of her mouth?
Oh, and the fact that the husband said she shouldn’t drink so much dairy before dumping her doesn’t make this line any more digestible. She moans and groans including that she was a good wife. Could have been helpful for us to see something that hinted at her being a good wife. All I saw was body shaming and shopping. She wonders how she is going to support herself. The father reminds her that she knows how to bake. He runs a bakery. Since she hasn’t been shell shocked enough, we need to have her do some deliveries using the local florist’s car. This really only exists so she can meet a love interest. Yes, this movie will ask us to buy that this guy…
should have any reason to want to be with her, despite only being in a couple of scenes together. He’s rich too. Of course their first meeting has her hitting and knocking down his bird house.
I think the screenwriters may have seen Clueless. Here she was looking at someone getting into a chopper and saying she wants the rich life back before hitting the bird’s nest. Love?
She makes it back alive and we get a proper introduction to the florist. She is also a reasonably likable character especially because we find out she’s smart and cultured even when it comes to rap music.
Now we get a weird scene. The movie will never follow this scene up either to really explain it. There’s a black kid who works at the bakery. She catches him presumedly stealing from the register, but covering it up by saying that it has just been popping out on it’s own. This is never followed up on even though he asks if he can take on more duties than just cleaning up and that his family needs the money. Is the film saying he was going to steal and that she is helping him or not? And the fact that someone immediately comes up to the register, the drawer pops open, and he says it’s doing that again and needs to be fixed doesn’t help. Was this supposed to say that Desiree was racist? It doesn’t make sense. Especially when we will see her help a black policewoman by giving her one of her outfits a little later. A character that will come around at the end of the film in a relationship with the lawyer. Honestly, the movie would have made a lot more sense had she ended up with the lawyer who bends over backwards for her and has an affection for her. Also, remember Cher’s father was a lawyer in Clueless. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.
Anyways, it’s time to learn that Desiree is still stuck up because she wants to straighten her hair? I don’t get that at all. But what I really don’t get is why her hair dryer is shaped like a gun.
Then in case we didn’t know the dad is really supposed to be, dare I say, clueless, he apparently had no idea that some clothes have to be hung to dry and has shrunk one of her dresses. What? He raised her and isn’t gay or anything so he was a married to a woman. Not that there aren’t men’s clothes that aren’t supposed to be put in the dryer as well. It’s just a really stupid scene that just tells us she still hasn’t changed and her dad is supposed to be so different because he is an idiot. Actually, this scene exists just so that the next ridiculous thing can happen on her way to meet with lawyers in the city.
She has to wear the same clothes she wore when she lived with her father back in the 1980s cause she’s wearing the early Madonna clothes. Not funny, and nor did I feel sorry for her when one of her friends brushes her off because of her fall from riches. Oh, and when they have her walking through the crowded sidewalks they do it in slow motion with upbeat I’m going to show them music, but why? She hasn’t changed at all. She shrieked at the reality of having to wear the clothes and just finished complaining about her hair dryer as well as her father’s incompetence. Why use this type of shot that is normally reserved for someone full of confidence? Makes no sense.
Oh, and small complaint, but her former friend tells her the 80’s have come and gone twice after looking at her outfit. Can someone please tell that to all the woman I see with off the one shoulder tops in modern movies? This lady is right. It’s not the 1980s all over again. While we’re here. One of the things that made Clueless so good is that part of Cher’s transformation is to stop seeing and treating her friends as superficial and start to appreciate the good and special things about them. Why is it necessary to lump all her former friends in the trashcan for characters as deep as a puddle who we are supposed to accept as better simply because they live in New Jersey?
She now goes in to meet with her husband’s lawyer and you know why nothing is brought up in her defense? Like the adultery for example. It’s because the lawyer comes in and is stoned after a dental visit. Yep. The only thing of value here is that we find out Olive is pregnant.
After a kitchen accident which isn’t funny, it’s time to insult the black kid who shows up on a pink scooter. He’s wearing pink too. Just in case we thought this was a meaningless little joke it immediately cuts to two guys at the counter where one says to the other “I want the fruity one” to which the other replies “I pointed to it first.” Yeah, that’s great. They do come across as if they are supposed to be a couple. Wouldn’t have been an issue if they hadn’t just harassed the kid about the pink. In fact, it would have made them seem progressive seeing as they don’t seem to have any reaction to these two guys. If you think I might be reading too much into this, then go watch the Hallmark movies Nearlyweds with it’s really gay stereotype hair dresser or Strawberry Summer where the singer has to assure the country folk that he doesn’t come from “those parts” of New York City but “the good parts.”
After people talk behind Desiree’s back, she gives them a piece of her mind, and a nun pops out of nowhere for comedy, the florist sits down with her to have a heart to heart. And by heart to heart, I mean insult her for standing up for herself. She even says that while they may have deserved it, her father certainly didn’t. Oh, that’s nice except nothing she said was directed at her father, he was there to hear their insults, and he doesn’t defend her after she stormed out, but simply asked who’s next. She then insults her for her supposed lousy work ethic. Really? When? When she did her father’s deliveries even though she knew she was out of practice driving or maybe when she tried baking even though she really has no experience in it. That and covering the counter for him. Yes, lousy work ethic indeed. By the way, Desiree still manages to be unlikable even though she doesn’t deserve this from the florist. We also discover that her father’s business isn’t doing so well. She says she had no idea since why would she. The florist tells her because she didn’t even bother asking. Somewhere during this, when even the audience is given no reason to believe his business is in trouble, she was supposed to ask him about it while also dealing with all these other things. I don’t like her, but cut her a little slack for crying out loud.
Now she seems to take an interest in her father’s business. That’s nice, but now bird house boy named Benny/Benoit stops by. We find out that he’s rich. Yep, she’s going to go from a rich guy in the city to a rich guy in the “suburbs”/”country” of New Jersey. During this scene he hands her a check to settle his account for the month. He’s a major chef and the scene leads us to believe he’s buying his stuff from them seeing as he is giving them a check. Why is the father’s business in trouble? Is this meant as a handout? He asks for her phone number here so is he trying to buy her or lure her to him with his money?
I keep bringing these things up because this movie keeps doing stupid things throughout it. She’s still rather insufferable too.
Now out of nowhere she is suddenly making these lovely little pastries that will be called Paddycakes after her father Paddy even though only a few minutes ago she was a disaster in the kitchen. Yes, these paddycakes will be the savior of the bakery. That’s because of this lady.
She is very impressed, and of course will turn out to be a newspaper writer later on.
After stupid dancing and shtick, the lawyer shows up again to remind us he really is the only character we enjoy in this movie. Oh, but before that we need to get in another homophobic bit.
At least the guy says he knows but still likes coffee in a cup like that to which the father responds, “good grief”. The rich guy again shows up to get her phone number and the instant she says he still can’t call her, he just walks away.
When the lawyer shows up, the joint is apparently doing really well now. Those must be some paddycakes. A few scenes, then the article comes out in the newspaper! Just look!
The bakery is so great that it had to repeat “In Flamington New Jersy, life just got sweeter, and it’s all thanks to a little slice of nirvana, called Paddy’s Bakery” three times! But what is the rest of the article here? I’m telling you, Darcy from A Gift Of Miracles is everywhere and she can shapeshift into other people too.
-The “I saw something of my own childhood, albeit a decade’s remove, in Colson Whitehead’s memoir of growing up in the seventies with low-budget, low-esteem science-fiction movies. He writes, ‘If I was lucky, I’d come home from elementary school to find WABC’s…” comes from a New Yorker article written by Richard Brody.
-The “But the bakery swallowed its umbrage long enough to see an upside: it put up signs about Cookiegate, changed its outgoing phone message to mention…” comes from a New York Times article by Michael Barbaro.
The second one makes sense…sort of…since the magazine the article is in is supposed to be The New Yorker.
Now it’s off to dinner with Benny. She even fixed his birdhouse. This is when something weird happens yet again. Her and Benny are going down a hallway to have some privacy when she notices an open door with an office inside. He quickly closes it saying she doesn’t want to look at it which she responds with an odd “okay”. Now we find out for sure he’s single. Then they make out. Now she notices this painting as she is pinned against the wall being kissed.
He says it’s his great uncle. What was all that about? Is this supposed to imply his family was involved with the Nazis via the Vichy regime? I don’t really recognize the uniform. What was the point of the office and painting? It doesn’t make sense and is never brought up again.
After we have a stupid conversation about waiting three days before calling up Benny, the lawyer calls to tell her he has a deal to “franchise the bakery”. The father just sends her. Doesn’t come along at all. I know I can’t possibly get this across, but the movie really hasn’t given us any reason for this. He even corrects her when she says it’s not his bakery, but their bakery. Then doesn’t that mean he should be there even more? I know it’s supposed to show he trusts his daughter, but we don’t have any real reason too as the audience.
Of course big city folks meddling in small businesses are usually portrayed as evil, so she turns down their deal.
You’ll have to take my word for it, but these are the only lines in this that she delivers that are done right. They make sense, we feel that she really believes in what she is saying, and we finally see some believable change in her character. Why couldn’t this have been going on throughout the movie? I don’t get it.
She goes home when the husband shows up. No reason given for why he shows up other than that Olive dumped him and the pregnancy was fake. That’s nice, but the only thing we saw Desiree do prior to being dumped is spend his money in the short time we spent with her prior to the breakup and we could hardly stand her afterwards. Again, it doesn’t make sense. We just are supposed to believe from their really short little exchange that she brought something to the marriage that he would want back. Just a simple scene where we at least see her being used as a trophy wife would have gone a long way.
Obviously she shuts him out, she winds up with Benny, the lawyer shows up with the policewoman from earlier, they dance out the door of the bakery, Desiree and Benny kiss, etc.
This movie sucked. Plain and simple. In the end, she has changed, but it’s too late at that point. Go watch Clueless or Harvest Moon instead.
Now a tribute to the best character in the entire film: the lawyer played by Steve Varnom.
Through the Shattered Lens 